The Ricin Hype

Following last week’s hyped up media reports on the arrest of a Mississippi man for mailing poisonous letters to US President Barack Obama, a senator and a judge, FBI has announced that it has not found any poison-making materials at his home.

“There was no apparent ricin, castor beans or any material there that could be used for the manufacturing, like a blender or something,” FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) Agent Brandon Grant testified Friday at a preliminary hearing at a federal court in Oxford, Mississippi, according to local press reports on Monday and Tuesday.

Paul Kevin Curtis was arrested and charged last Wednesday on the suspicion of mailing three letters tainted with ricin, a fatal biological poison, to Obama, Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker and a state judge just a day after the deadly Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, prompting growing fears across the US that the country may be under another major attack, reminiscent of the September 11, 2001 incidents in New York and Virginia that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Meanwhile, Curtis’ attorney, Christi McCoy, has insisted that “There is absolutely not a shred of evidence to link this poor guy” to an attempted poisoning.

“That’s the truth!” McCoy said. “He is the perfect scapegoat, the perfect patsy, and it’s really sad because at first everybody’s like, you know, he’s kind of crazy, maybe he did it. But as the searches continued, there’s just nothing on this guy. Nothing on his computers, in his car, in his house.”

US authorities first insisted that the letters tested positive for containing the deadly bio agent but then announced that more accurate examination of the mailings must be conducted at specialized FBI laboratories to confirm earlier tests.

This is while the FBI announced on Wednesday that is was still waiting for a “final word on whether the letters to Obama and Wicker definitely contained ricin.”…

James R. Granger, Jr.

earned degrees in economics and finance, has a lifelong interest in history and science, and has authored books on Megahistory, the origins and migrations of the races of humanity. This site was established to provide a vehicle for the dissemination of information important to progressive people.